Some are ‘sad, sad, sad’ all Fayette schools aren’t reopening. District raises bus driver pay.

Shannon Helton, whose son attends Lexington’s STEAM Academy, is among those upset because students in some special middle and high school programs aren’t being returned to in-person learning due to a school bus driver shortage.

Helton has suggested that school officials stagger start times and allow students whose parents can transport them to go ahead and return to the special programs as other students in the district are.

“If all schools are supposed to be treated equally, what is FCPS’s justification for keeping five percent of their schools closed with no return date in sight? I know that at least some, if not most, of the students in special program schools can provide their own transportation,” Helton told the Herald-Leader.

K-2 students returned Feb. 22 to in-person learning for the first time since March 2020, and grades 3-5 are expected to return this week. All other grades will return by March 15, district officials said. The district needs 232 school bus drivers instead of the 217 drivers officials initially thought were needed to cover routes for all main schools.

Out of 283 total bus driver positions, there are currently approximately 40 vacancies or medical leaves which equates to 14 percent of positions. By the end of the first week of in-person learning, absent employee calls increased from 16 to 37. Only two of available substitute drivers accepted assignments.

While all main schools can generally be covered, the bus driver shortage has caused a delay in the in-person return for special programs, including the three technical centers, and Carter G. Woodson Academy, Family Care Center, Martin Luther King Academy, Opportunity Middle College, STEAM Academy, Success Academy, The Learning Center and The Stables.

Those students will continue to learn virtually until the school buildings reopen.

A Locust Trace AgriCenter technical school parent, Jennifer Upton, said, “I have a sad, sad, sad Locust Trace student.”

“These kids adore their hands on learning classes, and they haven’t been able to do it for a year,” Upton said.

In an effort to fix the school bus driver shortage and return students in special programs to in-person learning, the Fayette school board on Monday raised salaries for bus drivers, monitors and substitutes.

“The first week of bus routes and staff absences revealed that we needed to make an immediate change if we are going to be able to keep our buses running,” said Acting Superintendent Marlene Helm. “This (proposal) will help us get through the next 52 days. We know we’ll need a longer-term solution.”

The district for years has worked on the driver shortage that has gotten worse with COVID.

In January 2019, the district raised the starting hourly wage for bus drivers from $14.20 to $17.76. Bus monitors have a starting salary of $12.01 per hour.

As a result of Monday’s meeting, for the remainder of the academic year, the Fayette school bus driver salary is now an additional $30 per day, the bus monitor salary is an additional $20 per day and the substitute driver salary was increased from $14 per hour to $30 per hour.

The $707,720 required for the increase in salary would be paid for by federal COVID-19 dollars given to the school district, Fayette Schools’ Chief Operating Officer Myron Thompson said.

Thompson has previously explained that although leaders have been closely monitoring transportation staff levels, as the return to in-person learning grew closer, several employees left the district or took a leave.

This story was originally published March 1, 2021 at 2:30 PM.